I've been searching the forums and although I've found similar posts, nothing quite the same as my issue, so here it goes:

When scrubbing through some AVCHD footage (mts files from Lumix GH2) in Premiere CS 5.5, the lagging is just unworkable. The same footage on the same machine in CS5.03 gives no problems at all, it scrubs just fine. Everything is exactly the same between the projects (see spec below), media on same drives, ... Is CS5.5 just really a lot slower doing this. I noticed the loading of projects is a lot faster now, does that mean certain 'temp files' are now created on the spot and that slows it down?

I've tried bringing playback/paused resolution down, made the monitor smaller,... some of it makes a bit of a difference, but never enough to make a real difference. Please help.

Spec:

Windows 7 64bit

AMD Phenom II 6 cores 3.2Ghz

8GB ram

Raid 0 array (7200 rpm drives)

Nvida GT440 (enabled for cuda via 'hack')

All drives defragmented.

Everything is smooth in scubbing in CS5 but not in CS5.5, regular playback is fine in both cases.

I have the same experience... Premiere Pro 5.0.3 scrubs smoothly with the Mercury Engine hardware on or off... but the same project in 5.5 lags horribly... if I scrub back and forth for more than a second or two the image stops updating then takes 3-5 seconds to update after I stop scrubbing... If I go into Mercury engine software mode it scrubs smoothly.

My system is i7 920 16gb ram GTX 460.... I'm also using the "hack" to enable the 460... and that's probably where our problem lies.

Sorry I don't have any suggestions just thought I'd let you know I have the same problem.

Although no solution, it's great to hear I'm not the only one with the issue. I've spend most of my day trying to resolve this with updating drivers/bios/.... Personally I doubt it has to do with the 'hack' as it should not affect scrubbing (as far as I know that's CPU only). As you're experiencing the same thing on a i7, I would guess that means Premiere has changed the way it treats AVCHD . It no longer seems to pre-load the info. but only load it when you're scrubbing that clip. It would explain the much faster loading of the media files when opening a project. Not good! I love the new audio features of CS5.5, but this is a dealbreaker for our studio. We're sticking with CS5 until it is resolved.

This issue is not just with AVCHD. All codecs so far are showing the issue. Also I am seeing a caching issue where the cpu usage skyrockets for the initial 5 to 20 seconds on playback and then it settles in to 10% or so. This is also on multiple codecs, platforms, Geforce or Quadro cards and such. This really smells of a caching issue with the MPE engine or playback buffer. I even have Dual Xeon 5680 systems with 48 GB of ram and Quadro 5000 video cards showing these issues with avchd, XDCam,DSLR, or even HDV.

I've been looking into this like crazy because this happens with all of the video files I ever work with, however I have a couple of working solutions; I've found that re-encoding the file in Media Encoder and decreasing the keyframe interval will allow the footage to scrub smoothly. I've been using .mp4 output with an NTSC DV, keyframe interval decreased from 33 to 11. This may not be feasible depending on your setup/length of film/etc., because it does take a while. The other way is to F5 Capture the footage directly into Premiere by playing it out. Both of these are somewhat time intensive, but in my experience I've found that re-encoding is takes about 50-60% less time than capturing if your system is up to par. I can't wait until this gets sorted out and I can just import raw files and tear away!

Just too keep the forum active and continue to give feedback to adobe, the update has not fixed my scrubbing issues either. Anyone else having this issue, please use the bug report. Hopefully the more feedback we give, the quicker we'll get a bug free Premiere.

Is there any update on this? It's really quite frustrating as the mean reason for getting CS5 was to be able to edit native DSLR footage, and this is really difficult given the current scrubbing performance

Looks like it isn't just Premiere having this problem, After Effects is also giving me the same results, but I'm using XDcam footage. Works fine in AE & PREM CS5 but the 5.5 versions are just struggling to display anything.

The 5.5.2 update for Premiere running 10.6.7 has not fixed the scrubbing issue. Anyone with Lion please comment regarding the scrubbing, as Lion has been able to fix the moving instances issue, and it would be great to know if updating to Lion has fixed the slow scrubbing with the latest Premiere update.

Thats just great... I recently ordered a new edit computer with CS5.5. The main thing we edit is AVCHD and wanted to get away from CS4 and a old machine becuase of how porely it handles AVCHD. I was impressed with a friends system that has CS5 on it, never would have guessed that 5.5. would have problems with it.

I sure hope that this gets resolved quickly, as I know the rest of you do to. As soon as I get the machine I will be using the bug report even though Adobe already knows about it. Hopefully everyone else with the issue is using the bug report too.

I just testing 5.5.2 running OS 10.7.1, and the OS has no effect on the DSLR footage scrubbing issue.

Strangey316, can you comment on your OS version and your experience so far with using CS5.(x)? Are you able to use AE 5.5 and Audition with the older version of Premiere enough to recommend rolling back?

Also, I got a call from Adobe support today saying that the 5.5.2 update knowingly did not fix DSLR scrubbing and that they are still aware of the problem but do not have a time frame of when it will be fixed.

I'm new to CS5.5 Production Premium. I have 5.5.2 installed, I work with a lot of AVCHD footage, and I'm also seeing the same scrubbing issues mentioned in this thread. It plays smoothly but scrubbing lags and skips a lot. Can't say how it works in CS5 because I've never owned that version. My system:

I'm also still seeing this issue. Just upgraded from a Quadro FX 4600 to a Quadro 4000 - may need to go back!!! Any updates? I'm getting ready to edit a feature film and need all the bandwidth I can get.

Gearo, I would qualify your statement to stay its unworkable on your system.

I have cut AVCHD on my system with no problems. FCP and PrP are vastly different in how they function.

FCP needs all clips transcoded in order to use them. PrP plays everything natively, no transcoding needed. But it does necessitate systems that maximize the effectiveness of the Mercury Engine. My system does that. Yours might not.

Adobe support has responded to my bug report that there is a known bug with AVCHD footage on the Mac. Through our testing on this thread, the bug seams to only effects Macpro 4.1 and higher systems, thus leading us to believe it is an issue with hyperthreading which the Macpro 3.1 system does not have.

Having used both MacPro 3.1 and 4.1 systems, the 3.1 system is far superior when handling DSLR footage than the 4.1.

Can anyone update or clarify these findings, as to be honest I've kind of just given up editing native DSLR footage on my MacPro 4.1.

I've posted my experience on a few threads, but I'm on a MacPro 4,1 (specs below) and even with the 5.5.2 release, H.264 DSLR footage from a 5D never became workable for me. (It was worse before the update, but it is still massively sluggish and buggy) My answer was to start transcoding to ProRes just like the FCP days for a smooth editing experience.